Deciding to purchase a new property is an exciting prospect, but it comes with many weighty factors that all need to be considered equally. When you decide you are ready to move on from your current living situation and start afresh, there are so many questions to be answered: where do you want to live? What’s your budget for a new place? What are your priorities when searching for a new home?

In trying to answer these questions, many people discover they have a binary set of options: buy a ready-to-move-in home, or buy land and build a home from scratch. In this article, you’ll find a helpful guide, giving you all you need to make this important decision.

The Pros and Cons of Buying A Ready-Made Home

Buying a ready-made home is what most people do, but does that mean it’s the right thing for you? Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of buying a ready-to-move home.

Pros:

• The whole process is very quick. Once you put an offer in on a home you love, and that offer is accepted, the move-in date can be within weeks of the financial agreement being made.
• You have to spend very little money when you move in. Your home is already there waiting for you, so little money needs to be spent – unless you plan on completing a full renovation.

Cons:

• You don’t get to have creative control over your home. Buying a ready-built home means you don’t get to choose how every aspect of your home looks or feels. You can make changes once you move in, but the bones of the place will remain how they were designed by someone else. 

The Pros and Cons of Building a Home From Scratch

This lesser-known option is becoming more and more popular with homeowners in this day and age. What are the pros and cons of building a home from scratch?

Pros:

• You can design your very own dream home. By building your own home, you get to design the home you’ve always dreamed of. This is one of the key benefits of a house and land package, in which you buy land on which to build a home for your family: there are very few compromises to be made when it comes to style and size.

Cons:

• Building a home from scratch can take a year, or even more on some occasions. Unlike a ready-built home, building your own home can take a long time. This means you’d need to stay in your current housing for a much longer period of time, which can be both expensive and logistically difficult.
• Building a home from scratch is expensive. There’s no getting around it: building a home from the ground up costs far more than buying a house with a traditional mortgage.

Final Thoughts

If you are considering building a brand new home, or are looking to buy a home in a more traditional way, use this guide to help you decide which option is best for your family. 

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